Critical care rooms are designed to provide patients with many services such as oxygen, vacuum, vital signs monitors, intravenous administration, electrical services and communication services. Most important of all, the critical care rooms will have the services of nurses to correctly apply the available patient care instruments as needed. The nurse will also perform the normal charting activities.
Current studies demonstrate that even with the most efficient equipment, the nurse is required to take many steps in the patient's room to perform the necessary services. The nurse must physically reach, touch and manipulate the patient, the administration sets, the monitor equipment, and the charting equipment.
The most efficiently appointed critical care room today has a power column and a swinging IV rack. The power column brings gas, electric and monitoring facilities to the patient. The power column also has shelves and racks for patient care accessories. The Hill-Rom, Inc. power column concentrates all of these instrumentalities in a tall, narrow, floor-to-ceiling column that stands away from the room wall. The hospital bed is positioned with respect to the power column so that the power column is at the corner of the bed. This provides patient access on all four sides of the bed.
The swingable IV rack (U.S. Pat. No. 4,795,122) has some limited capability of positioning. It is designed to be swung to a position for mounting on the bed so that the bed could be moved with the rack, or, alternatively, swung out of the way of the bed.
Ideally, with current equipment, the power column is located at one corner of the bed, and the IV rack is located at the other corner at the head end of the bed. A computer charting facility is located on a desk or on a stand in the patient's room. Even with these efficient tools the nurse must walk from side to side to reach both sides of a patient and to reach the patient care instrumentalities at each side of the bed and to reach the patient charting computer.
Co-pending U.S. application Ser. No. 07/309,886 discloses a pivoting power column that is capable of being swung to either side of the bed, a pivoting IV rack that is capable of being swung to either side of the bed, and a computer terminal preferably located at the foot end of the bed, but is capable of being swung to either side of the bed. The disclosure of that copending application is hereby incorporated by reference to form a part of the present disclosure. All of these features have been designed to bring the patient care equipment to the patient in a position that enables the nurse to function most efficiently while standing in one place alongside the bed. But still, there is need to walk to the other side of the bed to reach the patient and to reach the instruments positioned on the other side of the bed.